In what Jake Raak believed were the final moments of his life, he had only one regret.

The 35-year-old wanted to meet his baby nephew, who was expected to arrive any day. But bullets were flying in the Istanbul nightclub where Raak was celebrating New Year’s Eve. A terrorist had burst in and opened fire.

As he surveyed the chaotic scene, he thought the likelihood of surviving the attack was slim.

“He’s shooting dead people. He’s shooting people that are dying,” Raak said, recalling the people who had been shot would stand back up in their final moments only to be shot down again. “If this was the way I was going to go, then I lived a good life.”

Raak is one of few people who can say he was shot by an Islamic State fighter and survived. A bullet entered his hip and traveled the length of his thigh, lodging next to his knee after severing muscle and skin. Others in the Turkish nightclub were not so lucky.

Thirty-nine people celebrating the new year died when a man later identified as Abdulkadir Masharipov fired dozens of rounds from a long-barreled automatic weapon. Many of Raak’s high school friends, who had reunited for a holiday trip in Turkey, were injured, but all survived. Raak, who splits his time between homes in Greenville and Rehoboth Beach, was the only U.S. citizen injured in the terrorist attack.

The Delaware man appeared on television in the days after the shooting, a short clip of him briefly describing the tragedy to journalists inside an airport in Turkey.

“I don’t want to talk about what happened inside of the club,” he told reporters. “I would say this is a very good country, and it’s so unfortunate this is happening to you guys. I really feel for everybody here.”

Then Raak – a Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, native – disappeared.

He did not want the spotlight, and he was desperate to return to his small business outside of Philadelphia and get back to Rehoboth Beach, where he enjoys spending time.

Apprehensive and unsure of how and when to share his story, he turned down interview after interview from national talk show hosts and journalists.

But as terrorist attacks continued around the globe, especially in underserved and often ignored places like Turkey, Raak felt it was time to speak out.

No one ever talks about what it’s like to survive a terrorist attack. They talk only about what it’s like to die – and why the person or multiple people who carried out the attack did it, Raak said.

Turkish police secure the area at Ortakoy district under Bosphorus Bridge near nightclub Reina on Jan. 1, 2017, in Istanbul, Turkey.(Photo: Getty Images)

If the attack happens somewhere prominent, like an Orlando, Florida, nightclub or after an Ariana Grande concert in England, millions of dollars are raised to support those who died. Benefit concerts spring up, and celebrities voice support.

But when attacks happen in other parts of the world, those who survived or who lost loved ones are left to manage on their own.

"If you're in the military, you know you're in danger," said Richard Lachmann, a sociology professor at the University at Albany who studies terrorism and war. "But these attacks happen in places where you don't expect it. Even in countries like Turkey, where there have been attacks, you don't think it'll happen where you are."

At times, the effects of the attack are debilitating for Raak, both physically and emotionally. There are many nights when Raak doesn’t sleep.

“It really makes you wonder, did ISIS win?” he said. “Because they didn’t kill me, but my life is completely changed.”

He has limited contact with those lifelong friends who survived the attack alongside him. Some were injured, but a few escaped physical harm.

Talking with them now means talking about what they experienced that night in Istanbul – and the conversations are painful and challenging.

"You don't want to talk about it," he said. "I would have been happy not talking about it again."

'Kill as many people as possible'

Raak, who grew a family business into a flourishing subcontracting company that does government defense work, may now have to close up shop.

Between huge expenses from his surgeries and rehabilitation to knowledge of his attack, business at Tech Manufacturing Corp. near Philadelphia International Airport has dwindled.

People carry Jake Raak, 35, on a stretcher as he returns back home at Ataturk Airport, in Istanbul, on Jan. 2. Raak had been shot in the leg.(Photo: AP)

Many customers, he said, assumed that given the nature of the incident, Raak shuttered the business. Those who do call want to hear about little else but the shooting.

Raak is down to a skeleton crew and unsure where more dollars are going to come from.

In many ways, sales calls have turned into story time – a constant replay of the attack that changed his life.

He finds himself recounting his ordeal many times a week. Each time refreshes his images of what he went through.

“People start talking about the attack immediately,” Raak said. “You think it would give you greater reach, but it’s almost a distraction.”

On the night of the attack, Raak was celebrating with high school friends at the upscale nightclub, Reina. He attended Valley Forge Military Academy – a boarding prep school that was home to many international students whom he remains close with today.

With many international friends comes lots of global travel, he said, so the holiday trip wasn’t out of the ordinary for him.

Turkey – and Istanbul specifically – had always been on his must-see list, so a new year’s trip made sense, Raak said. He could have never imagined what would happen.

After a day of sightseeing with a hired driver, his group ended up at the nightclub, a recommended hot spot known for throwing a great New Year’s bash. He and his friends had finished dinner and moved on to a table in the center of the club when the gunman entered and opened fire.

At first, Raak said he could barely comprehend the chaos around him. Instantly, he sought to calm those around him – and find a way to survive.

“When you see a gun come in, it’s right there in front of you,” he said. “It’s not an angry child, not a person upset at their job … it’s a fully trained soldier straight off the battlefield of Syria. (The person) doesn’t want a thing from you, but they have just one intention: to kill as many people as possible.”

The gunman, about 100 feet from him, blasted out rounds from what Raak described as a military-grade weapon. Positioned at a table in the middle of the club, Raak and his friends had nowhere to seek shelter.

Some ran out the door toward the Bosphorus river nearby, jumping into the icy water to escape the gunfire. Others were hit with round after round from the automatic gun.

Some, like Raak, lay in agony on the floor – keeping still and silent while desperately hoping for survival.

But anger simmered deep in Raak in those moments, too.

“I was more ready to beat the s— out of this guy than run and hide," he said.

Jake Raak's doctors in Turkey snapped a selfie with him at the hospital.(Photo: Courtesy of Jake Raak)

Raak later found out that their driver was killed by the gunman. Video footage shows Raak being whisked into the back of an ambulance en route to a Turkish hospital, where he was treated for his wounds.

His surgical staff even snapped a selfie with Raak during his time there.

”I felt more comfortable in the hospital in Turkey than anywhere else,” Raak said, adding that the pressures and difficulties he would come to face during his recovery hadn't yet set in. “You’re alive in what feels like a new world.”

'Hit squad for you'

After a two-week manhunt, officials captured Abdulkadir Masharipov and charged him with carrying out the attack. Turkish authorities said he confessed, but the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the deaths.

The attack was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria, the jihadist group said in a statement released through Aamaq News Agency, which has unofficial ties to the militants, according to reports by the Associated Press.

A few months later, in April, a U.S. ground raid in Syria took out an IS operative Abdurakhmon Uzbeki, who U.S. officials said helped plan the nightclub attack.

For Raak, it was one of the few pieces of concrete news he had received since learning the man who shot him would stand trial.

“It almost feels like (President Donald Trump) is sending in a hit squad for you,” Raak said, recalling news of the planned raid.

It’s one of the few ways Raak feels the government has supported him since his ordeal. He said he knows little more than what he sees on the news.

Insurance from the government, which he was enrolled in when he returned home, only covers up to $50,000 in medical costs and up to $5,000 in mental health coverage – funding that Raak said is inadequate and unhelpful in paying his bills.

The program also works on a reimbursement method, which Raak said leaves him constantly explaining the attack to new people in an attempt to get bills paid.

The International Terrorism Victim Expense Reimbursement Program is described on its website as a "unique federal program that provides financial reimbursement for qualifying expenses to qualified U.S. citizens and U.S. government employees who suffered direct physical or emotional injury from an act of international terrorism while outside the United States."

Fees not covered by the insurance include legal fees, pain and suffering, lost wages and late fees for incurred expenses, according to the website.

"I'm appreciative of the program, but I'm living on a shoestring budget," he said. "My life has completely changed."

'You're alone in it'

Beyond his financial woes, Raak continues to navigate life after a terrorist attack – a balance of moving forward while not forgetting the past.

Sometimes, the stress of what happened and the constant retelling of his story keep him awake at night. It's easy, he said, to wonder why some people survived and others didn't.

Noting that he was the only U.S. citizen injured in the attack, he paused.

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Jake Raak survived a terrorist attack in Istanbul, Turkey, on New Year's Eve. Raak was shot in the hip, and the bullet traveled to his knee.(Photo: Jason Minto, The News Journal)

"You're alone in it," he said. “There’s no support. It’s so far from (the government's) thought that you’d even go there.”

Unlike war, which involves the act of signing up for the military and voluntarily choosing to serve the country, acts of terrorism fundamentally aim to take away control from victims and make a political statement, Lachmann said.

"(Veterans) died because their country is doing something they consider right in the world. For families of veterans, ... many times they take comfort in that they died for their country," he said. "With this, it has no meaning because there isn't any discussion about the political basis of these attacks and what they're reacting against."

Instead, acts of terrorism continue to haunt countries like Turkey. More people are killed, Raak said, and little is done about it.

Even here in the United States, Raak said the protests and violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a man drove a vehicle into a crowd of protesters and killed one woman, is its own form of terrorism.

"It's like radical Islam," he said.

Experts like Lachmann agree.

"It is terrorism," he said. "Terrorism is attacking noncombatants to in some way influence public opinion – in this case, attacking peaceful demonstrators. He was almost certainly doing it because he thought it would encourage more white nationalists to become violent themselves."

Yet violence and hate like the ones seen in these attacks are daily occurrences in some countries, a fact that Raak struggles with every day.

He created a nonprofit called the Journey Forward, which he hopes will one day aid fellow victims of terrorist attacks, but he's made no progress yet on finding victims from his own attack or developing the best way to help. As his own life gets back in order, he aims to create more change and awareness, too.

"You can't believe this exists," he said. "That people in Turkey are going through it."

The same goes for his own journey forward.

"Everybody just assumes you're OK," Raak said. "They don't realize it really handicaps you in a way, that there are major hurdles."

But he's determined to survive – and thrive.

"A situation like this is either going to make or break you," he added. "(I'm) not going to let it break me."

Contact Brittany Horn at (302) 324-2771 or bhorn@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter at @brittanyhorn.